14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL, 69 
The South, including the greater part of Mississippi and Alabama 
and sections of South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida, was 
occupied or dominated by various tribes belonging to the Muskho- 
gean linguistic group. The most important of these were the Choc- 
taw, Chickasaw, and the many small tribes which served to form the 
Creek confederacy. 
The Choctaw, which probably included many small related tribes, 
when encountered by the Spaniards in 1540, evidently occupied 
central and southern Mississippi, reaching to the shore of Lake Pont- 
chartrain on the south and to and beyond the Tombigbee River on 
_ the east. The Chickasaw were discovered the same year in the region 
about the headwaters of the Yazoo and Tombigbee Rivers, probably 
in the present Union and Pontotoc Counties, Mississippi, where they 
continued to dwell for several centuries. They may at this time have 
reached to the Tennessee or beyond. The two tribes just mentioned, 
the Choctaw and the Chickasaw, were closely related, they spoke the 
same language and had similar customs, but were ever enemies. 
Their natural environment had much to do with their mode of living, 
for, while the former, occupying the low, rather level country, were 
agriculturists, the latter, living in a broken, hilly region, were more 
expert hunters, and the wild game so plentiful and so easily obtained 
furnished much of their food. 
The Creek confederacy was made up of many small tribes forming 
two quite distinct groups of towns. ‘The first group, later known as 
the Upper Creeks, included many villages in the valleys of the Coosa 
and Tallapoosa. The principal settlements were in the vicinity of 
the old French post, near the junction of the two streams. The 
second group, occupying both banks of the middle and lower reaches 
of the Chattahoochee, were later designated the Lower Creeks. The 
league appears to have had its beginning in prehistoric times, before 
the coming of De Soto in 1540, although it was greatly augmented 
and strengthened in later times, when Shawnee, Yuchi, and Natchez 
were admitted. 
The Yamasi, whose early home was in central Georgia away from 
the coast, but who in 1687 revolted against Spanish rule and fled 
northward across the Savannah, also belonged to this linguistic 
family; likewise the Natchez, whose connection, however, was less 
clearly defined. The latter, one of the most interesting and remark- 
able tribes of the Mississippi Valley, occupied a large town a few miles 
distant from the present city of Natchez, Mississippi, with several 
small villages in the vicinity: During the early years of the eighteenth 
century they were at war with the French, which terminated in a 
great defeat of the Natchez, who were forced to abandon their ancient 
territory, and in 1730 the remnants of the tribe had scattered, some 
crossing the Mississippi and others moving as far eastward as South 
